Alexander Zverev hopeful knee heals for Olympic gold defense

Reigning Olympic champion Alexander Zverev is hopeful the knee injury he suffered at Wimbledon will not impact his chances of gold in Paris, but he said it is not yet healed.

The German slipped and hurt his knee during a third-round victory over Cameron Norrie at the All England Club and said he played on “one leg” in his fourth-round loss to Taylor Fritz.

But Zverev, 27, played in his home-city event in Hamburg last week and reached the final, losing Sunday to Arthur Fils.

Zverev, who beat Karen Khachanov in the final in Tokyo, describes his injury as a bone edema and torn capsule and said that it did not require surgery.

“To be honest, you know, the risk will stay for the next two, three, four weeks maybe because that’s how long the bone heals, and that’s what everybody told me,” Zverev said.

“But, at the end of the day I also knew that I don’t want to rest for four weeks because, now we’re playing on the surface where I don’t see that big of a risk of doing the same motion again and doing the same movement again.”

Zverev is on the short list of German athletes who could be flag-bearer for the nation during Friday’s opening ceremony.

“If someone told me that I should walk in as a flag-bearer, it would mean even more to me, to be honest [than winning the Olympics],” Zverev was quoted by SpilXperten.

“Leading an entire nation and so many top German athletes into the Olympics is simply the greatest honour an athlete can receive. And of course, the gold medal I won at the last Olympics is one of the highest achievements you can have in sports and for me personally the greatest success in my career.”